A National Evaluation of Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Training, [United States], 2019-2022

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)'s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC)Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Program provides TTA to ICAC task forcemembers and their affiliate agencies to support the investigation of ICAC cases.However, little is known about the quality, implementation fidelity, outcomes,and costs associated with ICAC TTA Program training. This study was designed tofill this gap and focused on examining the quality, implementation fidelity,and costs of OJJDP-funded ICAC trainings, as well as participant reactions totraining such as perceptions of quality and satisfaction, perceived changes inknowledge and skills, and perceived training results. Using a descriptivedesign, this study used multiple data collection and analysis approaches,including those that involved extant data collected by TTA providers (i.e.,surveys, pre-post tests, implementation data, cost data) and original datacollected by the evaluation team (i.e., observations, surveys, interviews, costdata). Findings suggest that overall, ICAC investigative training was ratedhighly by both trainees and their ICAC commanders in terms of the quality oftraining delivery, expertise of instructors, knowledge gains, and applicabilityto on-the-job ICAC investigations. Costs associated with ICAC training suggesta total cost of about $10.3 million to provide ICAC training over thethree-year evaluation period, with annual average costs ranging from $2.9million to $4.3 million over this period. Findings from this study are intendedto support OJJDP in its understanding of the ICAC TTA Program to develop anddeliver investigative TTA to ICAC task forces.